Economic Report Comments/Questions

["Michael Palage" <michael@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear ICANN:

 

With several important public comment periods closing within a short period
of time, please excuse the informal nature of my questions/comments.

 

1)      ICANN is releasing an ever increasing number of important
policy/governance documents upon the community, is it possible that ICANN
look at spacing things out a bit?  For people with day jobs it is becoming
increasingly difficult to keep up with the ICANN perpetual public forum
machine. While staff should be complimented for the increased quality in
connection with a number of these reports, if people do not have time to
digest them and meaningfully comment this should be a concern to ICANN.

2)      As I have commented in other fora, where is the "full market"
economic analysis that ICANN's president and CEO referenced during the 2006
annual meeting. Instead of a continued piecemeal release of economic reports
that fail to address the original questions that the Board asked, ICANN
should provide the community the "full market" analysis discussed almost two
and half years ago.

3)      When ICANN gets around to conducting this "full market" analysis, it
needs to address the following issues:

a.       The growing market acceptance of ccTLDs which now account for 10
out of the 15th largest TLDs;

b.      The disproportionate financial contributions that gTLDs contribute
towards ICANN's ever expanding budget (e.g. gTLDs registries, registrars and
registrants currently contribute around 95% of ICANN's 67 million projected
budget);

c.       The different regulatory/technical standards that ICANN imposes on
gTLDs and ccTLDs (i.e. Wild cards prohibited within gTLDs but permitted
within ccTLDs);

d.      Potential first mover advantage that ccTLDs may have in offering IDN
equivalents to the marketplace at potentially preferential terms;

e.      The need to reevaluate  the two-letter (ccTLD) and three-letter
(gTLD) nomenclature. This artificial distinction  began to blur following
the  2000 round with several new gTLDs exceeding the traditional three
letter string. This blurring on the ccTLD side will soon happen in
connection with ccTLD IDNs that no longer comply with the two letter string
restriction. Therefore, it is time to evaluate the entire TLD nomenclature
to see if these artificial labels are inhibiting innovation, choice and
competition in the marketplace as recently noted in the HP correspondence to
ICANN, see  <http://forum.icann.org/lists/2gtld-guide/msg00121.html>
http://forum.icann.org/lists/2gtld-guide/msg00121.html 

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

Michael D. Palage